Conversations in the Afterlife
by BroodingOne
Summary: It's a reunion and everyone's invited.


"Finally, you're here. I'm so glad you came."

Severus stared around for a bit before he recognized where he was.

"This is the Great Hall... What am I doing here?"

He turned to the voice at his side and with a slight shock he saw Lily standing right beside him and smiling.

"You were invited. Everyone is here, look..." She pointed around the Great Hall and Severus saw various people-all who had died before him-walking around and enjoying what seemed to be a party.

There were streamers along the walls and chandeliers and lights bedecked around the hall like at Christmas time and when Severus looked up at the magical ceiling it was a glowing gold with warm shining light. There were many he recognized from Gryffindor, a group of them were the Prewetts all standing happily together in one corner near the teacher's table and another group he saw were part of the Order of the Phoenix and they were all here, just like Lily said. Severus got another shock when he saw a few Slytherins near their table milling about but still enjoying the party then he turned around and saw-

"If I'm in heaven, why is HE here?" he pointed to the person he had least wanted to see, especially here with Lilly.

"Hello, Severus, nice to see you." James smiled.

"I really can't return the comment." Severus sneered.

"That's enough! You're suppose to enjoy yourself, this is a reunion and we're all suppose to have a good time." Lilly took hold of Severus' arm and led him along the Great Hall but he stopped short when he saw another group of Gryffindors. It seemed this heaven wasn't going to be as great as he thought it would be. Sirius was standing at the head of the Gryffindor table along with Lupin and Tonks and even Fred who turned his head and spotted Severus.

"Oi, Snape! Over here!" Fred was laughing and Severus couldn't help but feel the brunt of another cruel joke.

"It's all right, Sev." Lilly leaned in beside him, "We're all friends here."

Resolutely, Severus took her hand and walked up to the table.

"What is it?" Severus stared Fred down.

"Whew! Looks like he's still hurting from the previous life, I haven't seen a look so poisonous since I last fought with-well I won't go into that," Fred joked and held out his hand, "How about it, Snape? Ready to move on?"

Severus looked down at Fred's hand, "You're joking me..."

Fred shook his head.

"It's Severus, not Snape." He shook Fred's hand then looked at Sirius.

"Looks like the river Styx hasn't altered your memory a bit. I still see the same old grudge. Wouldn't it just be better if we started over and forgot everything that happened?" Sirius stared back at Severus.

"Not bloody likely." Severus said under his breath.

"Severus!" Lilly exclaimed, "You shouldn't swear in heaven."

"Is this really heaven?" Severus turned to her.

Lilly tilted her head a bit then shrugged her shoulders before she looked at him with her warm green eyes.

"I'd say it's a bit of a transition, you know, until you move on." Fred interjected.

"I thought we're going to wait for everyone else." Lupin finally spoke up and he put his arm around Tonks who hugged him tightly.

"Well of course, we're not 'gonna go without them." Fred laughed.

"Who?" Severus asked.

"Our family." Fred said.

"Our friends." Sirius added.

"All of our loved ones." James came over and put a hand on Lilly's shoulder.

"Speaking of starting over... If we're really dead and everything that's happened belongs to the previous life then-" Severus glared at James before he continued, "you're not really married to Lilly and that means she's free," he ended smugly.

"Whoa, not so fast there, Severus..." James gave an uncomfortable chuckle.

"We are starting over, Sev. but with no worries and no hate. This is the other transition before we move on. It's time for peace now." Lilly looked into Severus' eyes and he finally gave up and said, "I'm not waiting for anyone else then." He let go of her hand and walked back toward the doors of the Great Hall. James and the others called back to him from the Gryffindor table but he didn't turn around.

Severus put his hand on the iron knob and was about to open the door before it opened and he was pushed back.

"Oh Severus, there you are. Good to see you. I'm glad you came."

Severus stood back as the tall wizard waltzed into the room. Everyone said hello to him as he made his way down the hall to the teacher's table.

"Now I'm not going to stay for long, I just wanted to drop by and see everyone for a bit."

Sirius leapt up from the table and went over to greet the wizard. "Dumbledore, I would've thought you'd be one of the first to move on." The rest of the Gryffindors crowded around him and Severus had to look again to recognize the wizard who he had only seen as an old man. Now he was young but still with his long beard and he looked much happier now than he ever did. Severus turned to go back out the door when Lilly called him.

"Wait, Sev." She jogged along the tables to reach him at the door. "Don't go."

"Why should I stay?" He turned toward her then looked around the hall. It was everyone from the Order of the Phoenix and some from long ago and all of them were with their families and friends. There was no place for him here. It was a party as usual and he was not welcome.

"Please stay, I want you to be here when Harry comes."

"Oh great. The wonderful Harry Potter, that's all I need. Everyone in the hall is going to cheer for him and shout for the famous Harry Potter, the boy-no, the man who lived!" Severus knew he was being bitter but he didn't care.

"That is part of the past, another life. Everyone here has let go of that. We're all friends here, Sev. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can move on." She leaned close to him but Severus backed off. He shouldn't have come.

"I don't want to be here. I want to go. I don't care where." Severus looked away from Lilly, "I just want to die."

"No." Lilly put her hands on his shoulders and held him tight. "I won't let you."

"What do you care?" he scoffed.

"I care a lot and obviously you do too or you wouldn't have come here!"

"I didn't come here-I just ended up here!" he tried to pull away from her but she finally put her arms around him in a tight hug.

"I know, Sev. I was the one who invited you here. I wanted you to come with us and be with everyone here, especially me."

He stopped struggling and looked down at her. He wanted to kiss her and tell her how much he loved her-had always loved her. But the thought was absurd when everyone, including her husband James, was here in this afterlife.

"It's all changed. What we shared as children and lost when we grew up can't be had again. I don't belong here. Let me go."

"I won't leave you, Severus." Lilly had loosened her hold but when Severus began to pull away she tightened her arms around him. "Nothing has changed between us, we're here now. Let's just enjoy it."

"And how do you propose we do that?" he spitefully replied.

"Easy. Time and age has no meaning here. We'll just go back..." Lilly held Severus' hand and walked backward along the hallways which began to get lighter and lighter, like sunlight was pouring through the walls until Severus thought he could hear birds singing and see the walls turning green like trees.

Before his eyes they were in the forest and then a park with a swing set.

"Come on!" Lilly ran to the swings like a child and she laughed as she sat herself down in one of them and began to pump her feet as she swung in the swing. "Hurry up! I bet I can swing higher than you!" Lilly's laugh ran out toward the sky and Severus couldn't help but smile a little bit.

"This is ridiculous..." Reluctantly he sat himself down in the swing and got himself going. He watched Lilly beside him who was swinging and laughing before he too was getting higher and higher in the swing. "Now what?" He must have been twenty feet in the air and he felt he could have almost turned right over the swing set if he went any higher.

"Now JUMP!" Lilly let go of the swings and she flew out of the seat.

"WHAT?" Severus panicked and was about to stop himself but saw Lilly was still in the air and hadn't landed yet.

"Jump!" She was laughing and giggling as she slowly came down and Severus thought she looked younger and younger as she flew down.

With a great effort of will Severus closed his eyes and leapt of out his swing seat.

He was in the air and it felt like forever when he was coming down. He saw Lilly and she was smiling at him but as a nine year old girl.

Severus landed with a light step and didn't feel any pain. He looked around and he was the same height as Lilly just as he was when he was nine years old. But at least in heaven he wasn't wearing the stupid frock and muggle coat and instead was wearing his favorite school robes, the first set his mother bought him when he came to Hogwarts as a wizard. Lilly was in a pretty white dress and sandals with her long red hair glowing on her shoulders in the warm sun light and her green eyes were sparkling.

Lilly came up and hugged Severus who held her to him as he whispered in her ear, "I want to stay here forever." She giggled and kissed him and Severus smiled.

His voice had changed too, it wasn't the brittle adult voice that he was so used to but the young and quiet voice of his youth.

Lilly took his hand again and they walked to the grass, plopping down on it just like children would do.

Severus thought, "We ARE children again."

But this was much different. It was childhood without the anxious worry for the coming shadow of adulthood, it was childhood with all the wonder and the joy of being young and living in the moment.

Severus lay on his back, looking up at the bright blue sky and clouds that didn't so much drift as they did float and dance.

"So if this is really heaven, then we can stay here as long as we want?" Severus asked.

Lilly nodded and smiled.

"Then I don't have to worry or think of anything else..." He took her hand and they both lay back together looking up at the sky.

They lay like that together for a moment that may have been forever.

Suddenly, Severus opened his eyes. Another thought had occurred to him and he furrowed his brow in worry.

"You said this was a transition-before we have to move on." He sat up abruptly.

"When do we move on and where do we go?" He looked at her, alarm coming onto his young face.

Lilly didn't seem upset at all as she answered, "We move on when we are ready and we go where we will."

"That doesn't make any sense..." Severus turned to her. "What if I don't want to move on or go anywhere?"

"We all must go eventually and by the time you're ready you will want to go."

"Go where?" Maybe this wasn't heaven after all but he wasn't ready to go just yet.

"I think...when we go, we finally join that other place-the place where all things come from." Lilly had a far-away expression on her face.

"The place, you mean where God lives?" He was dubious about that.

"No, I mean where God IS. We join God."

This was too much for Severus to grasp, he was never much interested in Neotransmutation metaphysics or religion.

"What happens then?" He asked but knew the answer wouldn't make much sense either.

"Everything...We become everything." A small knowing smile showed on Lilly's face.

"So we know everything?"

"We won't know anything. When we join and become one, we cease to exist as individuals." Lilly answered matter-of-factly.

"And how do you know all this?" Severus wanted facts not the strange nonsense that Lilly was talking about.

"Oh, I don't know." Lilly answered slyly. "I just feel it."

Severus gave an exasperated sigh, this conversation clearly wasn't getting him anywhere. But as long as he had eternity to figure it out, he supposed he could figure out the answer.

"The answer you're looking for is already inside you." Lilly got up and pointed right at his chest.

"If it's already inside me, how come I don't know what it is?" Severus pointed right back at her.

"You have to find it." Lilly smiled.

"I hate hide and seek." Severus groused.

Lilly laughed and Severus was reminded what a wonderful sound it was, like music, and it made him feel warm inside.

"I haven't felt like this in a long time..." A strange impulse over came him and Severus grasped Lilly close to him and hugged her.

They stayed like that, embraced together, for a while or maybe a few eons, until Lilly finally separated.

"Don't worry, Severus, we'll be together no matter what."

"But we won't know we're together, will we?" He came back at her, daring her to address her previously flawed theory of the afterlife.

But Lilly gave her typical answer, she shrugged and smiled.

And Severus gave his typical rebuttal, another exasperated sigh, which sent Lilly into another fit of giggles before Severus joined in.

Before long, Severus was in the doldrums again. "I don't want to go...I'm not ready to move on."

"You don't have to move on, Severus, not yet." Lilly replied.

"I want to stay here with you forever." Severus grabbed her hand, putting his other arm around her, holding her close.

"You can but there's someone else who wants to be with you." Lilly gently pulled away and pointed down the hill of the grass slope where they were sitting, to a place Severus hadn't noticed before.

He looked closely to where Lilly pointed, and gave a startled gasp. His mother came into view as if she had been waiting there the whole time.

"I can't..." It was barely a whisper but Lilly answered him.

"Yes, you can. She's waiting for you, Severus."

It was true his mother, looking very young and surprisingly pretty, was standing there smiling.

A dark moment came over Severus and he seemed to age as he was sitting next to Lilly. He hadn't seen his mother since before her death-when he had left for good to join the Death Eaters.

When he had wanted to contact his mother again, it hadn't been safe, because she had married a Muggle-and in so doing, made herself a potential target for the Death Eaters.

He had severed all ties with her. News of her death came later and Severus had already lost Lilly-it had been too much for him.

"I don't understand, why would she wait for me?" His voice sounded old now.

"Because she loves you and nothing can change that." Lilly put a hand on his grown shoulder.

"She knows..." Severus didn't have to read her mind, he just knew, that his mother knew all that had happened to him.

Lilly said nothing.

Severus got up slowly, as if in a dream, and walked to his mother who was waiting for him.

He stood to face her, she really did look young and happy. He had once seen a photo of her, in a wizarding copy of the Daily Prophet, as a married woman-married to a Muggle.

She looked very much like that picture, smiling and radiating happiness. Her eyes were shining as she met him now.

"Hello, Severus."

Then Severus did the very thing he had never wanted to do in his whole life in front of his mother.

He started to cry.

She put her arms around him and held him gently, "It's all right. It's all right now."

Severus seemed to grow young again, having finally let go of his adult grieving, he held his mother as a child would and welcomed her embrace.

"My son, my only son." Eileen kissed his forehead and held him out so she could look at him. She gave an approving smile and hugged him.

"So smart and clever, you could always impress me with what you learned."

Severus didn't know what to do. What did she really think of all of this?

"What about the rest of it? Everything else... aren't you mad at me? Aren't you ashamed?" He was afraid to see her reaction.

"No, Severus, I am not ashamed." Eileen looked at him closely and Severus thought she started to resemble the mother he had known, somber and serious.

"You were very brave. You made some mistakes, but we all make mistakes."

Severus nodded and added, "Like you marrying father."

"That was not a mistake." Eileen corrected him and Severus saw her jaw tighten. "I loved him. And if I hadn't married him, I wouldn't have had you."

Severus didn't know if that was a good thing or not. "But he's not here." He added petulantly.

"He _is_ here, Severus." Eileen nodded.

Severus quickly turned around, expecting the old man to come out of some hidden shadow and hit him-like the man used to do when he was alive.

"Where?"

"You didn't see him... He's right there." Eileen pointed and before Severus' eyes, a man appeared, seemingly out of nowhere but was standing as if waiting.

"Tobias." Eileen called to him and the man turned around.

A young man with eyes and nose just like Severus' looked at her. He was dressed in a school uniform, dowdy but neat and carried an old pocket watch.

Severus thought, "His grandfather's watch." He knew it was true.

"It is time yet?" Tobias asked.

"So impatient." Eileen shook her head but smiled at him.

"When are we going?" Tobias looked as if he was waiting for the school bell to ring.

"When it's time. But first, come and say hello to your son." Eileen ushered Tobias over and he stood to where Severus was reluctantly standing.

"Hello." Tobias held his hand out but Severus said nothing and did not move to meet his hand. "I thought not. I don't suppose you're ready to forgive me?"

"Why should I?" Severus answered angrily. He turned to go off and look for Lilly but Eileen, his mother, stopped him.

"Severus, he's your father and my husband. And he has waited for you, so that you can forgive him."

"I'm not going to forgive him for what he did to me and to you." Severus looked at Eileen accusingly. "He should just move on already and forget about me."

Tobias went up to Severus then stopped as if struck by him. "I can't move on, Severus. I can't forget what I did to you. Your mother has forgiven me but I need your forgiveness before I can move on."

He continued, "I know you are not ready to forgive me yet. But I also know all that you have gone through-"

"It's none of your business!" Severus turned his back to him, enraged that he should face his father again like this, as a child.

"I have seen all that you have been through and I realize what I have done wrong." Tobias finished solemnly.

"You know nothing!" Severus turned back and angered seared through his body, aging him into the man he was just before he died. "Look at me, you know nothing!"

Severus moved to strike Tobias, who stood silently.

"Severus, no!" Eileen cried out.

Severus was about to hit his father, the man who so often took his rage out on him. But his hand suddenly froze, slowed in time and a vision of his father passed, as if he was seeing it through a pensieve.

A vision of his father, losing his job, facing his strict uncaring parents about marrying Eileen, discovering she was a witch, taking to the bottle, losing his wife and his son before losing himself-

"I don't care." Severus' hand fell to his side. "Don't you understand that? I just don't care..."

Tobias also seemed to age until he met Severus' gaze with a much older version of himself.

Severus thought, "Is that what he looked like just before he died?"

Tobias was unrecognizable from the man Severus knew as a child. His hair was white, thin and brittle. His face was an ashy gray with lines all around his mouth and eyes which had a red swollen look to them. He looked like a man who had lived through hell and more. Severus didn't know exactly how old he had been when he died but his father couldn't have been more than sixty, yet he looked almost eighty, an old man with an incurable disease ravaging his body.

Then he understood.

Severus had never seen his father after he had left but his mother had. She had stayed with him, had gone back to him when he was sick, sick from the bottle, sick from whatever had been eating at his body. She had been with him when he had died. Then shortly after his death, she left too, she hadn't been much more than fifty.

It was too much for him to think about.

Severus turned away, wanting to go, but he didn't know where to go.

Where could you escape to in heaven?

"I just wanted to see you again before I left. Your mother and I have made our peace but I wanted to see you one last time." Tobias spoke softly with a tenderness that Severus didn't recognize.

He turned back to the man who was his father. "Where are going?"

Tobias took out the watch that had been his grandfather's. "It's almost time to go. When I go, it will be the last you'll see of me."

"I thought we had a long time here, I thought we could stay as long as we wanted…" Severus was at a loss. He couldn't find the words to say what he meant.

"We all must go eventually and I have waited a long time…it's time to say goodbye." Tobias held out his hand and Severus already knew the answer.

He had forgiven his father and now he was going to leave for the last time.

He shook his father's hand and Tobias became like a young man again, smiling.

"It's good to see you again, son. I'm proud of you, of the man you have become and the man you were."

Tobias turned to Eileen and gave her a kiss. There were tears in her eyes but they were tears of joy.

"I'll be with you soon." She whispered.

Tobias turned and gave a final wave to Severus before walking down the grass slope, down to where the sun seemed to set and rise, toward the light.

Severus stared in wide-eyed disbelief, his father was leaving—but to where?

"Where is he going?" He asked Eileen.

"He's going to where we will all go when we're ready." She turned to him and smiled.

"I'm not ready yet…" Was all he could say.

"There's plenty of time, eternity in fact." Eileen gave him a hug and started to walk off.

"Wait, don't go!" Severus grasped for her hand.

"I'll be here if you need me." Eileen reassured him. "Don't worry, I won't leave without you."

"Nor will I." Lilly came up beside him and put her arm on his shoulder. "We'll be together."

"Forever?" Severus asked.

"Forever." Lilly agreed and Eileen smiled, leaving the two of them together.

Severus lay down with Lilly, a child again, as they stared up into the sky.

Now his father was in the place where they were all going to be together, wherever that was.

It had been an interesting conversation.

Heaven wasn't so bad after all.

Severus closed his eyes, holding Lilly's hand, unafraid of what was to come.

"Let it be…" He thought, "Let it be…"

***Author's Notes***

Thanks for staying with me through this story.

I've always had questions about the afterlife, so this is my answer to what I think comes next…

Hope you enjoyed it!


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